Has anyone seen my twenties?

Premature aging is spreading across the UK and is particularly prevalent amongst recent graduates in the UK who, upon leaving university, are plunged straight into fears about the property ladder, pensions and paying off their student debts. These young people graduate at the age of 21, do not pass go and head straight to 35, worrying about their personal finance investments before finding their feet in life.

These un-twentysomethings lifestyles can generally categorised within two extremes, either not going out at all because they have no money or going out and partying every Friday and Saturday night, because they feel directionless. Groups such as these may not seem particularly worrying, but many graduates are finding that they are working themselves to the bone by taking on two jobs and working seven days a week just to meet their bills. Some young graduates are known to even take on multiple jobs so they can bolster up their salary details for mortgage applications. By doing so, they commit themselves to a loan that can only be repaid through exhaustion.

These characteristics have been assigned to the emergence of the quarter-life crisis, but this epidemic of financial concern tends to be a problem for those who have been through higher education, rather than those who took full time employment straight after leaving school. This represents a worrying trend given the government encouragement for increased school leavers to attend university.

UK graduates find it particularly tough as they are often groomed to believe that they can get good salaries and corporate jobs. Yet many young people leave university only to be hit by the hard reality that the competition is immense and that expectations must be lowered. Some graduates, unable to find work immediately after graduation, get themselves into further debt by taking out career development loans and other forms of commercial borrowing to undertake a further qualification.

Due to the volume of UK graduates on the market, the need to stand out has made life much more competitive. Contacts, professional qualifications, Masters degrees and relevant work experience are now required to help secure a graduate career.

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It also seems that parents who try to help out their offspring by giving cash to get them out of their financial struggles may be doing more harm than good according to the NatWest. The report shows that those who accepted payouts from their parents were 25% more likely to then go overdrawn in the future than those who didnt take this form of financial help. Overall a third of young people said their parents had never taught them how to manage their money. If youre a parent and concerned that your children need help with managing their pocket-money, moneynet offers a family finance guide with a few suggestions. It doesn’t offer a magical solution to student debt, but it might provide some help in financial management.